A Mother's Tale
by Bhex
Summary: YYH/YST (Yoroiden Samurai Troopers) crossover. Shizuru, who has been away from home for so long, living a supernaturally troubled life, writes to her younger brother about herself, and her genius son.


A MOTHER'S TALE  
  
  
  
Kazuma,  
  
  
This is neesan.   
  
It's been a long time, hasn't it?  
  
I owe you a novel.  
  
I know it's going to take the better part of your patience, but please try to read through this entire message before doing anything else.  
  
Please do not tell Mother or Father just yet that you got this letter from me.  
  
I hope they are in good health. I happen to know you are. You don't have to ask me how. There's a bond we have always shared as siblings, and siblings of a family with a "gift".  
  
In fact, I bet you're the only one who's been saying "I think she's doing all right" since people started wondering if I was still alive.  
  
How is Yukina-san?  
  
You two married yet?  
  
I'm doing well. Relatively.  
  
I just wrote to ask you a really big favor.  
  
But the favor has a long story behind it, and I feel I owe you at least that.  
  
Well, I owe somebody an explanation.  
  
It's been a really long time. I have reason to believe I'll be awake until dawn just writing this letter.  
  
What the hell.  
  
Kazuma, I am now twenty-eight years old.  
  
I am also the proud mother of a beautiful eight-year-old boy.  
  
I named the kid after someone you know. You remember Touma-ojisan, from a long time ago? The one who never stayed for dinner?  
  
No, I don't think you do. You were too small.  
  
I was always the one who held on to his leg at the door, to make him stay a little longer.  
  
My son's name is Touma.  
  
He looks just like his father, who may as well be dead.  
  
You still with me, kid?  
  
OK.  
  
You're the first person I'm going to tell this to.  
  
Remember eight years ago, the day I packed up and left without even saying good-bye to any of you?  
  
We'd already left the Reikai Tantei business behind, and decided to move on with our separate lives.  
  
Eight years ago was when I first met Touma's father.  
  
I remember very clearly what had happened.  
  
There were no stars at all. It was cold. I suddenly wanted to take a walk by myself.  
  
I excused myself from you and the dishes and went out.  
  
It felt like something special was going to happen that night. Something I'd always known about, and at the same time, waited for.  
  
I know it sounds like crap, but you understand.  
  
I was already far from our house when I heard a motorcycle speeding down the road, from behind. I turned to look.  
  
The hell I can remember about that motorcycle, Kazuma, I don't know squat about motorcycles.  
  
It was the rider that caught my attention. With his helmet and black leather jacket on, he looked like just any other dumb dustbiter.  
  
But then he stopped, a few paces in front of me, and he looked back.  
  
He waited for a while, staring at me, and then he raised his visor.  
  
And I looked into the most beautiful pair of blue eyes I had ever seen in my life.  
  
Blue like the early night sky.  
  
He stopped his motorcycle beside me on the street and, without speaking to me, invited me to ride with him.  
  
It occurred to me even then that he might not have been human. Something about him was definitely strange. A youkai, perhaps? Whatever he was, he kept up a damn good disguise, to keep me wondering.  
  
I hopped aboard. What happened after that, I don't remember. However, five days later, I returned home.  
  
Now that I look back at it, I notice that I was not compelled to light a single cigarette that night. Not one.  
  
It was the edge of both winter and spring. New leaves were growing. And the wind was high.  
  
They had been five pretty memorable days.  
  
However, I'm not going to let you get off on the details.  
  
Now I can only remember what I had felt for the man whose name I never got to ask as an insane attraction. It might have been more. He might merely have hypnotized me with those eyes, enough to make me follow him everywhere and make me do everything he wanted.  
  
But then, it might really have been love.  
  
I seem to remember feeling something like love. I don't know now.  
  
Unto now, I still laugh at how I was able to pass five days in a sort of dream.  
  
I only remember waking up one day and not finding him beside me…and then waiting and waiting for him to come back. And then, when the day was done and he still had not returned, I remember picking up what I could gather of myself, and starting on the long way back home, to you and Kaasan and Tousan and Yukina.  
  
The delusion was over as suddenly as it had begun.  
  
I'm pretty sure he's Touma's father, because there are no other suspects.  
  
Damn it, I hope I don't have to spell that out for you.  
  
Yet I don't regret knowing him. As I don't regret coming home to the family I had always known only to pack my things and leave in a flash.  
  
It felt like I've always known it would happen. All of it.  
  
Something's always told me that something about Urameshi Atsuko-san's fate was tied to my own.  
  
That was why I used to keep quiet while she talked. While sober or otherwise. I'd always hoped there was a chance I could know what it was that brought us together.  
  
I didn't know we'd end up in such a similar way. Bet she didn't, either.  
  
I know she's no longer in this world. And that doesn't help my remembering how much I miss her.  
  
I love my son, Kazuma. Very much.  
  
When my life suddenly changed, I thought it would be for the worse - yet I couldn't help myself from being thankful for a dream of five days, and a child like mine to show for it.  
  
I know now how Atsuko-san must have loved Yusuke…knowing as a mother that there was something special about him, and not caring in the least. Moreover, I trust our family "gift". Maybe he will be among the next Reikai Tantei. Maybe he will be the next Anti-Christ. It doesn't have to matter.  
  
Touma's mine, and that's all I've ever needed to know.  
  
You'll understand someday, when you have a child of your own.  
  
I would like you to meet Touma.  
  
He's the brightest little thing.  
  
Actually, I'm understating it. But I don't know how to phrase the truth so that it would sound less frightening.  
  
When his blue eyes opened for the first time, he looked like an angel - the one in the picture books Touma-ojisan had brought us from overseas.  
  
He's looking more like a real angel everyday.  
  
His eyes turn down at the corners, like mine…but they're blue and unlike mine, they are large and alert and they look out into the world.  
  
Besides this, he is smart.  
  
Fucking smart.  
  
I'm not just talking straight A's here.  
  
I'm talking about the time when he was one and a half, and he tried to explain to me how one could make a bomb out of table salt and why it should never be kept in such a tight container so near the stove.  
  
I didn't get a word he said, because his tongue wasn't developed yet. He just recalled the incident to me a few years later.  
  
I just remembered that Kurama could tell you about him.  
  
I may as well say it.  
  
My son has met Minamino Shuuichi several times.  
  
In fact, there was one time when we lived in the same district as he did, and he lived only a block away.  
  
That makes up the longer part of this story.  
  
As I continue to write, I am beset by a nasty feeling of "should I or should I not".  
  
You may be in contact with Kurama right now, and reading this might change your attitude toward him in a way that will tell him that I've somehow gotten in touch with you and told you everything.  
  
Once he figures out that I've contacted someone else close to him, it won't be long before he figures out where I am, and start getting there.  
  
If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not have him around as of the moment.  
  
I'll have to explain this behavior, of course. Especially since you've been patient enough to read this much.  
  
I can't tell you what profession I've been supporting myself and my son with. I can only tell you that it's part of the reason why I can't stay in one place too long.  
  
Touma is eight now, and he's lived in over five different areas all over Japan.  
  
When he was four, and damn well ready to progress into second grade, we'd moved into the Juuban district. Minamino Shuuichi happened to move into the same district at the same time.  
  
He lived in an apartment building one block away from the small, cramped space Touma and I had rented.  
  
I find that I just can't resist telling you how Kurama knew about Touma and myself. It was just a funny story.  
  
Touma had just beaten up a bully from his new school.  
  
The bully's family happened to live in the very same apartment that had become some tall, green-eyed redheaded supermodel-type stranger named Minamino Shuuichi's virtual residence. Damn, but it was a classy place. Automatic doors, air-conditioning and everything. The bully's family was rich.  
  
Touma came home with a tiny bump on his forehead which sent me flying off the wall. I ran straight to the classy apartment immediately, dragging my flustered little boy.  
  
I demanded to see the woman who owned the bully who gave my flustered little boy a tiny bump on the forehead.  
  
I was introduced to the mother of a big bloody lump of flesh bawling his heart out in the district hospital.  
  
Needless to say, the woman wanted to kill me. And then she wanted to kill my son. I didn't stand for it. After letting her deal me a few scratches on the left cheek, I landed her an uppercut that punched her lights out.  
  
And then I started dragging my flustered little boy back home.  
  
Suddenly, someone shouted "Shizuru-san!"  
  
I recognized the voice. It sounded a great deal less tenor than when I last heard it. I turned around.  
  
Standing out against the gray crowd was a mass of red hair, and green eyes that slanted like a fox's. The surprised stare ran over me once, and then checked my son.  
  
I grabbed Touma, lifted him up, and got us both out of there as soon as I could.  
  
"Kaasan, who was that man who knew your name?" Touma asked me as I ran. "He looked strange. Scary." I did not answer.  
  
I set Touma down only when we were safe in our own apartment room, and then left him a moment to close the door. But then He was there, at the doorway, quietly asking to be let in.  
  
"No," I said. He was persistent.  
  
"Is the little boy hurt? Perhaps I can help."  
  
Just then, Touma appeared beside me, staring up with eyes bright like a warning sign at the stranger he recognized.  
  
"Go away," he said to Kurama.  
  
Kurama smiled down at him. "Ohayo gozaimasu," he said very softly. "My name is Minamino Shuuichi. I'm an old friend of your mother. What's your name?"  
  
He could kill like that, you know. His voice was, like the rest of him, maddeningly clever. My son, who was hard to deceive, started to believe he was harmless.  
  
"I'm Touma," he said warily.  
  
Kurama touched the cut that was already healing on Touma's brow. "Does that hurt?" he asked, without any obvious embellishment.  
  
But even as his fingers brushed lightly across the boy's skin, the scar solidified. The wound healed. And the boy's face lit up.  
  
"Not much," Touma reported with a bit of cheerfulness. "It's just a bump."  
  
He stayed to talk with myself and Touma until well into the evening. He claimed that my son made for wonderful conversation.  
  
While I was seeing him off, I asked him how he knew Touma was my son. I realize now that he might have heard it from one of the gossips that had collected to watch me make mincemeat out of the mother of the bully my kid had already made mincemeat of. But what he said was that it was easy to spot the resemblance: Touma had my eyes.  
  
Eyes, he said, that saw beyond shadows.  
  
I don't think I've ever really hated anybody so much as I did Kurama, during the days that followed our reunion.  
  
He visited regularly since, he claimed, Touma asked him to. He checked up on us every weekend, without fail. Sometimes he checked up on just myself while Touma was away at school, and I had no work for the day.  
  
Apparently, he did not have much to do.  
  
During one of our talks, I found out that he had decided to move to Juuban because he was out to get a degree at some college situated within the area.  
  
I found out from him everything I wanted to about you and everyone else. But that was four years ago.  
  
So Yusuke-kun and Keiko got married after all! And Keiko was pregnant with their first child when Kurama moved into Juuban. How are they now?  
  
Bet their house is eventually going to get flooded with kids.  
  
You don't need much psychic energy to see how they both have it coming.  
  
Anyway, Kurama did most of the talking. I had absolutely nothing to say. And then he started asking questions.  
  
Like: if I was seeing anyone as of the moment.  
  
I said No: I didn't plan on seeing anybody just yet. I wanted, foremost, to get a better paying job for Touma's sake, and myself.  
  
That was when he brought up his brilliant idea of taking care of a few of our finances.  
  
Flat out, I said "No thanks, we can take care of ourselves."  
  
He must have realized he had offended me, because he promptly shut up.  
  
And started paying our electric bills and phone bills without my permission.  
  
Touma thought it was great, you know, Kaasan, you can stop cussing your boss now.  
  
…and I can cut back on tutoring annoying sempai for peanuts.  
  
Shuuichi-ojisan is great, Kaasan, isn't he?  
  
I told Touma he was becoming noisier everyday.  
  
There was something I didn't like about the new closeness Kurama and I developed.  
  
I'd just about had enough of men with mesmerizing eyes.  
  
At the first opportunity, I went off to talk to Kurama about the bills. He let me in and offered to discuss the matter with me calmly.  
  
I told him to shut the hell up, what would people think? He was a single college student younger than myself, and running a business that made more money in a month than I made in a year.  
  
On the spot, he promised to behave in a way that would not implicate myself nor my son in any sort of scandal.  
  
He added, he was also curious about Touma. "Shizuru-san, what is he?"  
  
I answered flatly that I expected to be the last to know.  
  
"I'm worried about him," he admitted.  
  
I laughed, said Tell me about it: I moved to Juuban in the first place because his first-grade teacher was thinking of testing him for supernatural powers and submitting his name to some goddamn TV freak show.  
  
He surprised me by taking what I had said very seriously. He said he wasn't at all surprised that such a thing had happened. Touma had potentials that could prove interesting to creatures of this world - and of others.  
  
If circumstances were different, he said quietly, he would have worked on provoking Touma into showing his "hidden powers", and cultivating those powers for his benefit. Enma Daiou probably has plans for Touma that He did not want to reveal to anyone just yet, not even Koenma-sama (apparently, Kurama had tried asking).  
  
And then, just as I probably expected him to, he said he was no longer Youko. And it wasn't only Touma he was concerned about.  
  
He said "Shizuru-san, I am not saying you couldn't stand up on your own. I only want to help you."  
  
Then, I said to him, rather coldly, you should stay away.  
  
He did.  
  
Of course, Touma wouldn't let him. He visited "Shuuichi-ojisan" in his apartment rooms almost every afternoon, after class, and yet always came back in time for dinner, boasting of the wonderful stories "Shuuichi-ojisan" told about a certain fox demon who became human only so he could save the world.  
  
He was proud of everything he did with "Shuuichi-ojisan". One night he came home with Kurama's old fuschia high school jacket draped over his shoulders, bragging that since he could almost fit into the thing, "Shuuichi-ojisan" insisted on giving it to him.  
  
(Of course, he was ten years shy of fitting into it, but you couldn't deny a kid a brilliant imagination).  
  
I steadily got more dismayed. Until one night, Touma came home pouting. He said "Shuuichi-ojisan said my visiting him upsets you."  
  
I didn't say anything.  
  
"He likes you, you know that."  
  
That got to me, even though I had it coming. Touma knew me so well he was tactless around me, as I sometimes was around him.  
  
"You're not making things any better for us like this, Kaasan."  
  
As you'll probably know, those words are enough reason for a twenty-four-year-old mother to strike her impudent four-year-old son across the cheek. But they happened to be spoken while I was unreasonable.  
  
Touma looked resentful, when I still didn't say anything. Finally he fucking shouted "I don't see why you shouldn't just marry Shuuichi-ojisan and save yourself the trouble of putting up with me all by yourself!"  
  
Before I could return this one final blow, he had bolted from the room.  
  
Probably to seek out his precious ojisan.  
  
I didn't care where he went. I only knew I didn't have the strength to pursue him, or find him if he wasn't back before late.  
  
Where did that comment come from? I wondered.  
  
We used to have fun all by ourselves. We'd lie in the grass and look up at rainbows, and talk about just anything until the colors faded from sight.  
  
During slow, clear nights, we watched stars shoot by.  
  
What did he mean I didn't have to "put up with him all by myself"?  
  
Let's cut the crap. He'd only meant he needed a father for himself. A father like Minamino Shuuichi would also have been perfect.  
  
To hell with whatever else he could have meant.  
  
Touma came back too damn near midnight. What more or less brought me back to the real world was the sight of my little boy leaning very heavily against the wall where the light switch was, looking tired as he had never looked tired in his life.  
  
"I'm sorry, Kaasan," he managed to whisper, before he collapsed.  
  
No matter how I tried to revive him, he stayed deathly pale, not breathing. I rushed him to the district hospital and while the doctors clapped their pumps and wires on him, he looked so small and frail.  
  
Apparently, Kazuma, your only nephew has a weak heart.  
  
When your kid is really, really sick, it doesn't matter that you know he's not dying.  
  
You know he's going to get better, but you still want to get rid of the pain as soon as possible.  
  
So I went to Minamino Shuuichi for money to pay Touma's hospital bills with.  
  
He readily gave it. He said he did not need to be paid back immediately. In fact, he said a little later, he did not need to be paid back at all.  
  
He only wanted the chance to visit my son at the hospital.  
  
I pocketed the money and ran off without even thanking him for it.  
  
Despite the circumstances, Kurama showed up in the hospital while Touma was still interned. However, that was on a day when Touma was pumped full of sedatives, and he wasn't likely to wake up even if he knew that his beloved ojisan had taken the trouble to visit.  
  
I only tend to call him Kurama. How he appeared to me on that day in the hospital is how he shall appear to me always: Minamino Shuuichi, a young man with too much of everything to give, stranded by his own affections within the cruel human world he never intended to find beautiful.  
  
But his eyes were human and they saw humanity.  
  
He had brought flowers. Gigantic roses the rare color of Touma's eyes. Dew still glistened magically on the petals. There were no thorns.  
  
He placed them on the bedstand, where Touma would be sure to see them upon waking.  
  
He glanced over at me once as if to tell me the roses meant he promised to come back. His mesmerizing eyes gleamed with a sort of hopelessness I dared not recognize.  
  
And then he was gone.  
  
The instant Touma was well enough to travel, I packed my bags and his, and left Juuban - I hope: for good.  
  
I left the roses on the hospital ward's bedstand. Touma might have hidden a head away for himself. I never knew, really. And never cared. Roses never last more than a day, anyway. Even roses that Minamino Shuuichi grew himself.  
  
Kazuma.  
  
Have you been dreaming of blaze lately?  
  
I have. I've been dreaming of a really big fire. Big as to swallow up the entire city. And there are shapes dancing in the fire, vaguely human, vaguely otherwise.  
  
I've been dreaming of my son walking into that fire.  
  
In my dreams, I hear him screaming out concrete words in a slightly older voice, one capable of unimaginable rage and pain.  
  
I feel him dying. I wonder where I am while his screaming fades.  
  
Only a few nights ago, I had such a dream. And I woke up crying.  
  
Touma, who always sleeps beside me, threw his arms around me and begged me to shut the hell up. He would protect me, he would never leave me.  
  
But children forget their promises, don't they? We should know.  
  
The interesting part is done with. I ought to be getting to why I wrote.  
  
I am afraid I need your help.  
  
Recently Touma has had another stroke.  
  
I don't know what caused it. His classmates only say he just suddenly fell asleep in the middle of class, and didn't wake even after the last period.  
  
He is eight years old - a bit tall for his age, so that a bit more time could fit him snugly into Minamino Shuuichi's old fuschia jacket - and in his first year of junior high school.  
  
He is an academic scholar in the academy he attends, but even the money I save from that is not enough to prevent me from writing to people who don't deserve to be bothered, when emergencies like this come up.  
  
He may have to stop school for a year or two, just until he could recover his health.  
  
I am ready for it, but I'm afraid he'll go crazy if I don't find him anything to do, or at least think about, while he is waiting to get well.  
  
You know I am not making all this up just to weasel money out of you.  
  
For one, I'm sure you haven't been getting by so well on your own.  
  
So I am not suggesting any amount for the money I am borrowing. Please just send only as much as you can afford to give. You know I'll eventually find a way to get by. I always do.  
  
I have already sent the amount I owed Shuuichi for Touma's hospital bills to Shiori-san's permanent address. This was quite some time ago, and you could confirm it from Shiori-san herself, whom I feel is lovely as ever and doing very well.  
  
As in this case, I will pay you back as soon as I am able to.  
  
I have enclosed the address you may send the money to in a separate piece of paper that should come with this letter. The address is that of a kind family headed by one Sanada Hideo.  
  
Please forgive me. I must keep my own location a secret, for the sake of the people I care about the most.  
  
If it's within your power, can you enclose a letter with the money, just to tell me how everyone is doing back home?  
  
You may also not send anything, not even money. I will understand.  
  
Please don't bother to look for us. In a little while, my son and I would have moved to a place which would be just about impossible for you to locate.  
  
Please.  
  
Take care of Yukina, Kaasan and Tousan for me.  
  
Tell Keiko-chan and Yusuke to take it easy.  
  
And be kind to Minamino Shuuichi.  
  
I am sorry and I still love all of you.  
  
Someday we must meet again. Take care of yourself until then.  
  
Your older sister  
  
~oOo~  
  
NOTES:  
  
The usage of certain motifs here that are reminiscent of another anime series called Yoroiden Samurai Troopers may be coincidental. Then again, maybe they are not. :P  
  
For copyright preservation purposes, I'd say Yes, they are in fact rip-offs from Yoroiden! This includes the names "Touma" and "Sanada". Apart from this is the ripping off from the continuity of a famous anime called Yuu Yuu Hakusho. But would anyone really like to think there was a crossover? The disparities in the timelines of the two aforementioned anime are quite distinct. YST started off WAY before YYH. But what the hey, the pieces fit, somehow. It's that, or I'm just poor with jigsaw puzzles. :P  
  
To all Shizuru lovers out there, I know I practically turned her into a bitch, but I'm sorry about that - and for the record, I'm a Shizuru fan, too.  
  
Revised on August 7, 1999 


End file.
